In an exclusive chat the bighearted original ‘disco dancer’ of Bollywood discusses his new innings, doing character-driven roles convincingly, being the poor man’s Amitabh Bachchan, working with Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar, superstardom and his upcoming action flick Boss…

At 63, Mithun Chakraborty is still a superstar. Call it luck or sheer talent – Mithun da, Elvis impersonator, auto-rickshaw driver’s hero, three-times National Award winner, successful hotelier and exceptional character actor with a mass appeal is experiencing a sort of rebirth, thanks to filmmakers and writers who were raised on his brand of movies. After several months of rigorous follow-up, we managed to pin down the elusive actor for an interview. And it was indeed worth the wait! Catch Mithun da at his candid best…

You play Akshay Kumar’s father in Boss – that makes you the Super Boss!

(Laughs) Aisa aap sochte ho!Bossis about a father-son relationship – a father who holds his values and morals high and wants to keep it alive at all costs, but an incident happens because of which he throws Akshay out of his house. And then comes a time when he goes to that same son asking for help to rescue his younger son. Later, he knows that whatever Boss had done, he did it for his father and the message is – father is always right.

Your association with Akshay has resulted in several successful films – Khiladi 786, Oh! My God and Housefull 2. Being actors from different generations, you two share a good rapport… is that why you have worked more with him that any other actor?

We are very good friends. Akshay has lot of respect and love for me. I guess our energies match. We think alike. Akshay is a sincere actor. He’s punctual and professional. You will never see him coming late on the sets. And he gives 100 percent to everything. I’m also working with Salman Khan in Kick, Ayushmann (Khurrana) in Bambai Fairy Tales, and with two new actors in Subhash Ghai’s Kaanchi.

Of course! We had great fun. We are good friends. We have done many films together – some good, some bad.

What excites you most – scripts or banners? Some say you do films mostly for friendship…

Money and script.

As an actor, you must be happy with the kinds of roles you’re getting these days. But as a father you must be worried about your son Mahakshay Chakraborty’s career…

It’s all about luck in Bollywood. It plays a very big role in an actor’s life. Luck gadhe ko ghoda bana deta hai aur ghode ko gadha! I think Mahakshay has it in him, but luck is not by his side.

Do you ever recommend Mahakshay’s name to the stars you work with?

No. Even if I do, what will happen? Agar naseeb mein hi nahin hoga, toh kya? Let him try.

From being the eternal disco dancer of Hindi cinema to becoming the poor man’s Amitabh Bachchan – looking back, did you ever think you would reach this position?

I would say I’m fortunate that I got lot of opportunities to prove myself. As I said earlier, it’s all about chance. There’s no other formula. I was a dancing star. The dance forms changed with time. First MC Hammer’s dance was popular and then came hip hop and later, new dance forms. I was inspired by Elvis Presley and Adele Astaire. Even today in every village you will see a Mithun Chakraborthy. Sometimes if people ask me why I did a particular role, I tell them maine chance liya. This interview is your chance (smiles).

Does this mean you’ll do every film offered to you in the name of chance?

If I think there’s a chance! (Laughs)

You come across as someone who’s absolutely content with life with no complains…

One has to be ready to face every phase of life. I’m very satisfied as an actor. I have seen superstardom. I’ve won three National awards and the Padma Vibhushan. What else should I ask for? If I think and answer your questions, then I won’t be the real Mithun. Sochke intelligent baatein karke aapko impress karne ke liye main yahaan nahin hoon. That’s the reason why I don’t like doing interviews.

Dance India Dance season 4 just got over. Will you judge the show’s next season too?

The people at Zee have a lot of trust in me. I wasn’t ready initially to judge the dance show, but I took the chance and it paid off. The dance show has bridged the generation gap. Even a five-year kid knows who I am. I asked him what’s my name and the kid said, ‘Grandmaster Chakraborthy’!

Watch this song only to know the logical explanation behind the title of this tacky looking movie

Mithun Chakraborty and Mahakshay Chakraborty in the same song from a movie called Enemmy! Now isn’t that dad-son combination too much to handle? But handle we did as Sunil Shetty, Kay Kay Menon and Johnny Lever too joined in the jig for a lackluster number, Hit the lights.

Directed by a certain Ashu Trikha, this movie is a cop drama comprising four CID officers who are the best back-up to tackle some major crisis. We hear even Mahesh Manjrekar will join this gang in the movie. Sung and composed by Gaurav Das Gupta, this number is a desperate attempt to make the film look cool. We wish if the director had put in some thought to this absolutely boring track or better still chopped it off at the edit table he would have earned a brownie point or two! Take a look at this number and tell us if you can tolerate the torture!

The comic actor will play a somber character in his next film

They say it is more difficult to make someone laugh than it is to make them cry. Johnny Lever has seen immense success in doing the former and now he is ready to take up a new challenge and do the latter. Johnny will play a serious character in his next film Enemy. Kay Kay Menon, Suniel Shetty and Mahakshay Chakraborty also star in the film, but all eyes are now on the funnyman.

Johnny is delighted with the opportunity. He told a leading publication that he is feeling very good about the fact that he will be seen in a different light in the film. It was the idea of the film’s director to cast Johnny in a role that his fans would love to see him do, but have never seen him do. However, his dialogues will still be laced with the trademark witticisms of the Johnny we know. Wonder how the writers will manage to do that! We hope they do a good job. We’ve seen very little of Johnny lately and he proved in Players that even at the age of 62, he has not lost his charm; his cameo had us wishing for more. Frankly, Johnny playing a serious character is more of a draw than Mumaith Khan (of Dekh le fame) dancing to an item number. Do you agree?

Govinda’s film is a painful reminder of the collapse of the comic caper in Bollywood, but it’s still better than Rascals

There is a don (oh, there are many of them peeping out of every nook and cranny of this abominable comedy) played by Prem Chopra who loves Meena Kumari and Pakeezah. Sighing loudly he tells another don, played with lipsmacking relish by Mahesh Manjrekar, ‘They don’t make heroines like Meena Kumari any more. She was someone you wanted to marry. Nowadays the heroines are good for only one thing’. That is just about the most subtle dialogue you will get to hear in this in-your-face farce where three small-time wastrels – Govinda, Jaffrey and Mahaakshay, and a scowling goon Suniel Shetty – take off to Pattaya. What follows is a fiesta of fatuous gags and dialogues including of course, bad puns on ‘pattaya’ and ‘guard’. Wouldn’t miss out on that.

Loot looks like an unfinished product from a group of actors and technicians who lost their way in transit. This one should have ideally remained in the cans. Just why Suniel invested into this piece of filmed garbage is anyone’s guess.

May be he thought it would be a fun caper, a sort of Oceans 11 with lots of lowbow jokes about ‘andar daalí and ‘baahar khol’. Come on! Crudity by its very nature requires a very high amount of discipline and dedication to be convincing and inoffensive on scene. The crassness in Loot is simply boring. The characters are most frequently seen lolling around in hotel rooms, waiting for the dialogue writer to come up with some more oafish innuendos. In the meanwhile there is a whole truckload of gangsters, goons, dons and hoodlums waiting to pounce on the plot at the drop of a hat. The world never seemed more unsafe.

Govinda’s habitual abilities to improvise do see some of the scenes to a kind of culmination. And Suniel remains true to his character, while Manjrekar along with his sidekick Razaak Khan share the film’s only genuinely funny sequence. But most of the time, the actors seem as clueless about their next move as the scriptwriter. So they just decide to have fun with the pun.

Somewhere in the initial reels singer Mika and starlet Kim Sharma (long time no see) pop up as part of a street gang in Pattaya. They add considerably to the overall confusion of the proceedings. Really, you’d need nerves of steel to sit through this mishmash of misdirected mirth and over-done cockiness. The actors try hard not to look bored. The performances in this deflated farce are better than the recent Rascals where the actors tried hard to be funny. Here no one makes an effort except the dialogue writer who seems to be falling off his chair in delight at his torrent of double entendres.

If only we knew what was so funny. Loot is a hoot. And a painful reminder of the collapse of the comic caper in Bollywood in a heap of inadequacy. The writing reaches a stalemate even before the actors warm up to their roles. And then it’s downhill all the way.

Lolo to make a sensational comeback in filmmaker Vikram Bhatt’s erotic thriller

Last time we remember seeing Karisma Kapur, it was in the Deewangi song in Shahrukh Khan’s Om Shanti Om, where she was playing herself. Now we hear that Lolo will be seen in a Vikram Bhatt thriller titled Dangerous Ishq, that too in 3D! Though her retirement was never made official, what surprised us was that the Kapoor kudi will be part of a Bhatt-camp film, this despite the fact that one of her best performances has been in YRF’s Dil To Pagal Hai and most of her commercial hits have been with David Dhawan. Between these two ends of the Bollywood spectrum, Karisma now will do a film that doesn’t go very well with her ‘khandani’ girl image. We wonder why she chose an ‘erotic thriller’ for her comeback to Bollywood. Being from Bollywood’s first family, she could have been easily re-launched by RK Films, no? Maybe the Kapoors are too busy with Ranbir and Bebo’s high-flying careers, which could be a reason why poor Lolo had to look around for greener pastures. We are just hoping she isn’t cast with Mimoh, aka Mahakshay, who managed to impress Vikram with his performance in Haunted 3D, never mind that hardly anyone else watched it. Whatever happens eventually, one thing is for sure – this erotic-thriller, plus or minus Lolo, will end up giving the media a lot of fodder to chew on for a while. Mr Sanjay Kapur, where art thou?

Mahakshay Chakraborty claims that the criticism by the audience brought a transformation in him

Mahakshay aka Mimoh, who made a disastrous start to his career with Jimmy, declares that he experienced epiphany when people flooded the ‘once- upon- a- time- smug- guy’ with criticisms instead of praises.The young actor states that the whole experience helped him take his career seriously and work hard on himself. “I was totally missing in the past, whether it’s my hair, weight, looks or body language. Everything was bad. To be honest, I wasn’t experienced. I was in a hurry to be launched. I wanted to shine in glory and I thought I could dance my way into people’s hearts but they actually kicked my a@# in return. Jimmy taught me not to take my life easy,” he says in a subdued tone. Well, he also claims that we will get to see a completely different side to him in his next Haunted 3D. Let’s see if Mimoh manages to dance his way into people’s heart this time around, just the way his father did!